Pages

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Piggy Macarons

Oh my GAASH, it's a little piggy! On a macaron! He's so cute I couldn't eat him. No really, I haven't eaten any of the the little piggy faces, I had to taste test one that didn't have a face on it. I've had a break from baking macarons lately, I was starting to get a little sick of it and I don't want to bake up boring macarons. Doughnut Macarons - definitely not boring. Plain macarons with chocolate ganache - pretty boring, unless you put them on top of a triple-triple chocolate cake. But I could feel my interest waning so I took a break...until the piggies came along. Sure they're only filled with a simple vanilla bean icing, but who needs complicated flavours when they've got fat widdle noses and ears?

These adorable little piggy macarons nearly didn't see the light of day. I originally thought up this idea with the intention of making a special little post for Leona on her birthday. Piggy macarons for Pigged-Out, hehe geddit?! I'd seen the sweet piggy buns from Chef's Gallery but hadn't seen it done on a macaron yet. As per usual, things did not go to plan. I thought it would be so simple. My first attempt was over before it even started, so there was no way I'd be able to give them to her in person. Then I was hoping to get them done in time to post them up on my blog on Sunday for her actual birthday...but I ended up with horrible cracked piggy macaron faces. Poor mutilated piggies. I gave it one more go and enough of them were decent (though you can still see some cracks). Make them at your own risk! I think the cracking tends to happen if you don't let the surface of the macaron dry enough before piping on the nose and ears, and if you use your finger to mess around with it like I did.

Piggy Macarons(makes approximately 10-15 fairly large macarons)100g aged egg whites (you can use fresh eggs too, just make sure they are room temperature. I always use fresh these days, and zap it in the microwave on defrost for 10 seconds)110g almond meal, dried in a cool (100 degrees C) oven for 5 minutes and sifted200g icing sugar50g caster sugarOptional: 1 tsp powdered egg whites (available from The Essential Ingredient)

Line two baking sheets with baking paper. Place icing sugar in food processor and pulse for a minute to remove any lumps. Stir in almond meal and pulse a few times to combine. Place in a large mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites and egg white powder in a medium mixing bowl until the egg white powder dissolves and it reaches soft peaks. With the mixer on high speed, gradually add sugar and beat until it reaches stiff peaks.

Add meringue (and powdered food colouring) to your dry mixture and mix, quickly at first to break down the bubbles in the egg white, then fold carefully as the dry mixture becomes incorporated and it starts to become shiny again. Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture should disappear after about 30 seconds. Place in a piping bag and pipe rounds of about 4cm diameter on lined baking sheets or silicon baking mats, leaving a small amount of mixture leftover in the piping bag for decorating your piggy faces (around 1/4 cup) Gently rap your baking sheets on your bench top to remove any extra bubbles from your piped shells.

Leave shells on bench to dry for about 30 mins to an hour, so that when you press the surface of one gently it does not break. Carefully pipe on the piggy noses into the middle of the half the piped macaron shells using a narrow round piping tip. Using a wide, flat piping tip, pipe on the little piggy ears, starting from the edge of the macaron. Take care not to disrupt the dried surface of the piped macaron rounds or it will be more likely to crack in the oven. If you can be bothered you can pipe little squiggles (for piggy tails) on the half of the macarons that will end up being the backs to the piggy face macarons.

Preheat your oven to 140-150 degrees C (temperature varies depending on your oven) and dry piped macaron shells on bench for a further 30 mins to an hour. Place on top of an overturned roasting tray or another baking sheet if they are not professional grade. Bake for 13-15 minutes, depending on the size of your shells. Remove from the oven and cool on the tray for a few minutes, then gently remove from the sheet and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

To prepare the butter icing, remove butter from the fridge 30 minutes before starting. Beat butter on high speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add icing sugar and vanilla bean paste until smooth and fluffy. Using a knife or spoon, sandwich between macaron shells, using one piggy decorated shell and one plain shell. Using the black food colour and a wooden skewer, draw on the eyes and mouth of the piggies. Leave to dry and then refrigerate overnight. Can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for several days. Serve at room temperature.

So Happy Birthday Leona! I hope you like these little piggies, I'm just sad I wasn't able to successfully bake them and give them to you in person before your actual birthday!

P.S. I think I should mention something about Tumblr. I am incredibly flattered whenever I get any link backs due to people sharing my photos on Tumblr, though sometimes I do think that the way that some people credit their sources on there is questionable (especially when they copy and paste my recipes without including a text link *cough*). But others do it properly and have lovely pages like Just Be Splendid. As a way of saying hi to all those people on Tumblr who are sharing my photos, I just started one myself: http://raspberricupcakes.tumblr.com/ There's not much there at the moment, at some point I might start putting photos up there. And maybe if you plan on sharing one of my posts on Tumblr you can let me know and I will reblog it. Share the love ;)

These are the most adorable macaroons I have ever seen!!! They are gorgeous and your photos are the best ever as well!! They look completely magical with the cute background. (What is the background?) You have the greatest imagination and creativity.

so adorable! .. ive failed so many times with making macarons the taste is always nice but rising if the macaron is what i have trouble with! ..with your recipe i managed to get the perfect lift without them spreading even ... BUT when they came out of the oven .. they sank down :( any idea why??

Hi Anonymous - are you referring to the feet? I've often struggled with the feet of my macaron shells collapsing after they come out of the oven. It usually means that the shells need to be baked for a bit longer, you need to make sure the feet are competely dry and not sticky when they come out of the oven. You may need to adjust your temperature a bit lower to achieve this without over-baking the macs. The only other tip I could give you is to ensure your egg whites are whipped to the correct stiffness :) Hope that helps!

No sorry, I should have been clearer. It means drying the piped macaron shells, following on from a previous instruction 'Leave shells on bench to dry for about 30 mins to an hour'. I'll clarify that in the recipe now.

It is an incredibly crucial step. If the shells are not dried properly, especially for these piggy ones, it is more than likely that cracks will form on the shells when you bake it. And it's drying it on the bench again, as you do with all macarons. If you're not experienced with baking macarons I definitely would recommend attempting some plain macarons shells before trying ones with extra decorations like these.

Hello, I am a fellow Malaysian and I've tried your recipe more than 7 times already and I loved this so much. But it was only 90% perfect as I faced the most frustrating and annoying problem; the macarons turned brown no matter what.

When I bake medium sized Macs at 150 celcius at the bottom of the rack for 25 minutes, they were baked and delicious. but they got browned. Another time I tried is I tried 140 celcius and its the same.Another time I tried was when I place a baking tray on the highest rack to prevent it from browning at 150 C again (my oven has three racks, the lowest, the medium and the highest rack to slot the trays) and the colour turned out decent but it is undercooked and its sticking to the pan eventhough I left it out to cool for more than 10 minutes.May I know what have I done wrong? Im planning to bake some for people to eat yet the colour turns alot of people off (originally lilac macarons, but it browned to a grey colour) and it frustrates me to no end.Thank you in advance! :)

Hi Adele, there is no right or wrong temperature or timing when it comes to macs. Every oven is totally different, and you need to adjust the temperature and timing to suit your oven. From what you've described, 140 celcius in your oven is still too high for your macs. Try reducing your oven temp by 5 degrees and baking it for longer. If they are undercooked and sticking to the pan then just keep baking them until you can lift them off the baking paper. To be honest I don't even look at the time when I bake macs anymore, I bake them until their feet are dry enough that they are easy to remove from the baking tray. If your oven temp is low enough then you will be able to bake them for long enough without them going brown. I always put my macs on the middle rack with a double baking tray. I also use a non-fanforced oven with coils that are only on the base. If you are able to control which coils your oven uses you can try experimenting with that. I hope that helps!

Comments are moderated and will be published ASAP. If you are viewing this on your phone, you might have to click the Preview button before posting your comment for it to work. People who comment make my day! ♥

An email to me for permission before reusing my images/recipes on your blog or website will be greatly appreciated, and you must must must credit me with a link back to the original post(that doesn't mean the front page) if you reuse any of my content. My photos and recipes CANNOT be used for commercial purposes without my written consent. DO NOT POST MY PHOTOS ON INSTAGRAM. There are no means to sufficiently credit me and I will report any photos posted on instagram as copyright infringement.